3 Huntsville schools in pilot program to track students riding buses (with video)

The Huntsville school district is conducting a pilot program that will allow administrators to track when and where students get on and off of the bus. The program, being tested in three schools, will have students swiping electronic ID cards each time they board or exit a bus. (The Huntsville Times/Michael Mercier)

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- The Huntsville school district will start tracking students who ride a school bus next month as it kicks off a pilot program aimed at keeping children safe.

The approximately 300 bus-riding students at Morris Elementary, Ed White Middle and Huntsville High schools will participate in the pilot study, which Huntsville City Schools spokesman Keith Ward said would help determine if the program should be expanded district-wide next school year.

"Based on the information we get from the pilot, it will help us implement it in the fall," Ward said.

Ward said the system, called ZPass, will allow school administrators to keep better track of those students who ride the bus each day. Kyle Koski, transportation director of the district, said about 5,000 students ride the bus.

"It is an immediate way that we can have feedback if a child does not get off (the bus) where he's supposed to," Ward said.

The district and police went on alert twice in August when, on the first and second days of school, two elementary students briefly went missing after taking the wrong buses.

Each student in the pilot program will be assigned a personalized radio frequency identification (RFID) card, which they will swipe in front of a card reader installed on the bus' dashboard. Students will swipe their cards each time they get on the bus and whenever they exit.

Using RFID technology and GPS, the card reader records the location of the bus at the time of the swipe and immediately loads that information onto the district's computer network. At any time, administrators can pull up the data -- including a map -- and see exactly where a student both entered and exited a bus.

The district anticipates some students losing their cards, Ward said. Extra cards will be made for each student, but there may be a cost to parents if a child loses his card.

Student Tracking System 01.18.12HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - Keith Ward, with Huntsville City Schools, explains the new student tracking system installed on school busses to track ingress and egress locations. (The Huntsville Times/Michael Mercier)

Rena Anderson, the district's director of community engagement and partnership development, said each student would also be given a lanyard to hang the card on. The lanyards are being donated by area businesses.

"We don't want the kids to have to hold them," Anderson said. "We want them to be able to wear them."

Though the donated lanyards will not cost the district, the tracking system will. Koski said the ZPass card readers come at a one time cost of $400 each.

The annual subscription to use the system is $75 per bus.

The pilot program includes nine buses at a cost of about $4,200 for readers and subscriptions, Koski said.

If the program is implemented district-wide, the cost to install readers in the remaining 105 buses would be about $45,600.